Metamorphosis
by AllisonNoir
Summary: This is a prequel for my 'Pieces of a puzzle' work. Its name is 'Metamorphosis', and it will be about Matt and how he spent the years after he left the Wammy's and before Mello asked for his help.
1. The Corpse

_"You are a psychopath."_

 _"_ _I prefer creative."_

The Corpse

Matt was bored, and when he was bored, everything felt around him cold and grey and common. He has lived in LA, approximately for half a year, but he has found this city as anything else. Like he had felt himself in England. England was cold and grey, even Winchester and the Wammy's House hadn't been felt him the life differently. Nothing made him to feel somehow else.

Firstly he had thought that this place would be else. It would change his life, but he has been wrong. Every place has been the same. And he felt nothing anywhere. But it has been his curse, he was cold. Maybe he was even colder than Near has been sometimes. And even this day wouldn't change on this state. The days would come after each other, the life would be the same and nothing would ever change. Not in his sight. Sometimes he hasn't cared about it, sometimes he hasn't felt it a complete suck, sometimes he has enjoyed the life, but in the most cases, he has felt this poisonous and fatal boredom. Sometimes even his games couldn't change on his mood. And this day was one of those days.

He left the hired flat, not because he wanted to, he had to. He has currently had nothing in his refrigerator than one damn half empty beer bottle, thus he had no choice than to move. He has hated it. He has hated it so much. Well, he didn't hate it, sith he hasn't felt anything at all, but what made him to feel more bored than anything else, he has described the action as a hated one, and going outside was one of those actions.

He has rather spent his time within the four walls and waste his time with games and anything else, than pretend himself like a normal daily human being. But since he had finished with his latest game and done the businesses what he had been entrusted, he has had technically nothing else to do than lying on the couch all day. Going outside has sounded far a better program to do momentary, even if he has hated the whole thought about it. But lying on the couch… well, he, at first needed some food and liquid to do it later properly. And well, he has needed to buy some stuff sooner or later, and this time sounded the most logically, whereas he had nothing else currently to do.

He put on his coloured lensed glasses and took on his furred vest. It wasn't really cold outside, California was hot, always, comparing to the foggy English weather, he has just got used to it to pick it on, like his goggles. He has called his appearance as his signature, with his common stripped upper, fretted jeans, snooker and most of the cases with his black gloves. Of course, not skipping the vest and the diy-fabricated glass eyes. It was his common look.

Sometimes he has changed the upper, to a red-white or a blue-white one instead of the basic black-white, and sometimes he changed the beige vest to his yellow hooded jumper, but that has happened only occasionally, when for example he spilt the original upper with something or it incredibly stank from the smoking even for his not too sensitive smell. So, he took on his common look and left the flat to buy something, firstly in this week, or even month, he couldn't really tell when had been the last time he had been outside.

He has already got used that the mass at all times for some looked to him weirdly, maybe because of his glasses what for a foreigner looked like as a swimming goggles in a much cooler way, but now, today, nobody reacted to its sight differently. He hummed as he recognised this. Well, for now, maybe they has already got used to it. But it was still weird and creepy. The seller in the small shop, what place he has beloved so much, has always sounded his outlook or raised her painted eyebrow when he bought his common stuff: liquids, cigarette, sometimes a new lighter and only in a small percent, food and normal drink.

Matt hasn't cared with the woman, or the view how she felt about him, about that obviously damned adolescent. Because in a certain way, she was right. He has been that teenager what he was looked like: take drugs, drink alcohol, do nothing, be addicted to games and eat barely. In short, he has lived a damn life what was deprecating for in the mass's eye. A fault in the system and Matt has exactly known how a fault could look like in a system. He has liked to eliminate them, namely that has been his job.

But now, today, he wasn't cursed, not at all, what fact grabbed his attention. The seller almost smiled to him. Maybe, she had a good day, he thought anon, but in deep he didn't really care. He hasn't ever cared about the stuff around him. He took off the small amount of cash from his pocket as he paid for the common stuff. He bought a pack of beer, another box of cigarette and he allowed himself to buy two case of canned food. He wasn't hungry or as he sometimes has to admit himself, he hasn't felt hunger. Maybe he has already got used that feeling, but when it was stronger, he defeated it with the liquids. And, well, how he should have been hungry if he didn't feel any taste for ages? He has just taken food as a habit; he hasn't felt it necessary at all. And even, he couldn't allow himself to spend money to stuffs what he hasn't enjoyed. But, well, there were anything at all what he could enjoy really.

The seller took the money and undoubtedly smiled to Matt with her strongly painted lips widely, showing with the smirk her fangs. Fangs. The maroon guy had to blink twice to comprehend the sight and only when he left the shop made out he the reason why he saw fags. The date. This day was the day of the year what simultaneously was forgotten and recalled year after year in the Wammy's. It was Halloween. The date was the last day of October, one of the exceptional days what were celebrated at the orphanage.

It took two years to Matt to recognise the reason behind it, it was L's birthday. It wasn't known by everyone, he had just got that fact from Watari when he had heard a discussion between him and Roger once. Well, it wasn't a rare occasion, everyone else's birthday was celebrated, but the rest get one box as a present on theirs day. And Matt had always doubted that this day was exceptional, only because it was cool to the kids to be celebrated. They have missed the Easter and they have celebrated the Christmas differently, so why the hell should have that day been disparate than the left-overs? He had got the reason than.

When Mello had come to the Wammy's, he had already known the why and when his blonde friend had started to be addicted to L and to beat Near and to be the best, he had had to rethink that day. He had lied to his chocolate-addicted fellow. And the day when he had lied to him, had been the day when that day has started to be forgotten and recalled by everyone, even from his own best pal, just because Matt hadn't wanted to beat Mello. That had been the day when even him has started to forgot about it. But now, he has been alone. He hasn't been at the orphanage where he has needed the lie, he has been alone. Maybe he should celebrate it, he thought for a moment, but in the same time, he rather skipped that possibility. He put the bought stuffs to the shopping bags and left the tiny shop, but at the corner, he had to stop for a moment.

He took off the bags and pulled out the blue box from his pocket. Even if it was the worst and the best day of the year, he after all had to somehow celebrate it, not with fangs and with strong make-up as the seller did that, for him a cigarette outside was far enough. And by the way, when he would go back to the flat, everything would be the same as the rest three hundred and sixty-four days has been – or one more as it was a leap year. He sniffed from his fag and thought about the things.

For a moment nothing has been there just him and his cigarette. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the peace. Luckily it has been the part of the day when every normal people were on their workplace, and on the streets there have been only the ones who lived according to a different life-method, just like him. He, for a while closed everything else out of his mind, beside his surroundings and the loafer people. Thus that was the reason why he has just slightly managed to hear the familiar word, what he suddenly heard somewhere near to him.

" _Mail?_ " voiced someone again. Matt opened his eyes and looked around. It was his name, the original one, what had belonged to him before the Wammy's, before everyone had had to choose a new one according to the rules and to keep the perfect camouflage. But he just couldn't hear his name. Only two people have known about it – or maybe a little more counting with the audience of his and Mello's occasional debates, when they had used to shout each other's names when they had been really pissed off to the other.

But naturally Matt has counted that only two people have known about his birth name. And that sound certainly sounded like a ' _mile_ ', meaning ' _Mail_ ', not the linear measure, what just couldn't be possible. He looked around and marked every single identity on the streets and at the café-shops' terrace to catch the owner of the previous voice. But there were nobody who seemed to him familiar who should have been aware of his real name. He hummed like he has just heard it wrong and thrown his fag to leave the scene when a hand was raised slowly.

"Here, dumbass." said the foreigner and certainly gazed to him from a nearby coffee shop. The person didn't seem familiar to the maroon guy at all. He couldn't even tell if it was a girlish boy or a boyish girl. He couldn't mark the individual's gender, or at least not from this distance. "Come here, stupid, I'm not biting – or at least currently I don't have a fancy to bite." laughed the stranger. Matt had then no choice than to join to the table on the café-shop's terrace. And well, in truth, he couldn't tell what to do today. At least, the other's attendance brought something differing to the common day what has waited for him as he would go back within the four walls. He took on the plastic bags from the ground and walked toward to the still unfamiliar person. He stopped near to the table and gazed to the unknown.

"Sit down, Mail." smiled to him the person and offered the left seat. Matt hesitated for a moment but then decided to change on his habitual daily life and as if it was heard in the well-known sentence, he seized the day. Fucking carpe diem. Anyway, he hasn't had anything better stuff to do currently. He sat down but immediately started to mark the stranger. He or she was wearing a thinner blue coat, bigger than it was needed and jeans with white snooker. The person's face seemed childish with its pale and almost pure skin, but it had a little bit lumpy surface. The hair was dark and short, or as it looked like it was short and dark, because basically it was hidden by a grey barret. And the eyes what were belonged to him or her, it were amber. And that amber colour felt to Matt like an annoying déjà vu.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" he heard the funnily asked question. "That hurts, Mail, that really hurts." laughed, then calmed down and smiled. "Well, what should I expected? It was counting from now, well, ten years ago? I don't know exactly. My mind and rational calculation have become a little bit distracted since I was literally unconscious for a while and drugged and well, even the prison-days made change the person's soberness. My fault." cracked up again.

"Who the hell are you?" took Matt the question, but beside he would have liked to require an answer, he was on to figure out the situation on his own. He noticed that the other also wore gloves. That fact wouldn't be weird, counting with the current season, but the weather wasn't chilly. It was approximately ten or fifteen Celsius, or as he calculated it before the Wammy's time: fifty or sixty Fahrenheit. Thus wearing gloves wouldn't be necessary basically, except if the person has had reasons to do it, like him.

"What are you marking, Mail?" asked the stranger funnily, noticing his gaze. "Oh, I see. The common marking method, I remember. You have to know it, even if you are awakened from your dreams. And what are you managed to figure out? I would be curious. You know, even if it's me now – well, in seventy-eight percent – I am a quite good shapeshifter basically. So, tell me, Mail, what my ' _original_ ' form tells to you?"

Matt raised his eyebrow, even if his surprise couldn't be visual for the blue coated one because the goggles covered his eyes; he knew that the stranger was exactly aware of the impact of the sounded words. He was sceptical and the unidentified person has started to annoy him. He felt like, he was currently an object of a creepy joke by the other, and he hated that feeling.

"It's Matt, by the way." he said. "And I don't think anything at all." the maroon guy murmured. He, for a moment, thought about the possibility to stand up and leave the place. He has just waited the perfect time to do that. He was interested initially but his interest minute after minute has started to grow to annoyance.

"Ah, finally." said the other and took off the gloves, following with the amber eyes the waitress's path towards their table, like a foxhound. The man put a dish pancake in front of the stranger and added then a small amount of jam in a smaller one. The unfamiliar person has kept in his eyesight the dessert till the waitress leave them again, and then smirked.

"Okay, so, when I said to them, no pancakes, I meant no pancakes, not empty pancakes. And seriously, this is ridiculous." lifted the dark haired the smaller dish, which was truly a foolishly small amount of jam. "But c'est la vie. Anyway the stressing just kills the man. And two death-experience were far enough even for me for a good while." laughed and turned to the maroon guy. "Mail, are you hungry? Wanna eat my pancake?" offering the dessert to him.

Matt rather refused the food. Not because he couldn't eat it, and it would be inappropriate to eat somebody else's portion, he just didn't feel to tease his stomach with sweets and then go back to trash food. It would have been unfair from him to his senses. Pancake and pizza. Well, in this case, he thanked so much but he stayed to the pizza.

"Your choice." hummed the other. "But I won't eat it, so don't bother you." said and took off the tiny spoon from the jam, keeping the silverware within two fingertips, like it was tought in the Wammy's to avoid leaving fingerprints. Matt has always thought as it has just seemed creepy, wearing gloves made the same result, and the man didn't look like during touching stuffs as a complete retarded.

The other licked the spoon slowly, not wasting even the small amount of jam on it and then put it beside the dish. "Last chance, Mail? I will eat the whole then." asked again, holding his hand in the air. Matt shaked his head. "Well, then bon appétit for me." said and dunked two white fingers inside the jam.

"Mmm... god damn it, how much I've missed that!" moaned like a damn whore on Friday in a red light district and licked the sauce off from the fingers. Matt's eyes widened, but seemingly the other didn't give a shit how the whole scene looked like. The person just enjoyed the sweet on his or hers habitual creepy way.

"You seriously have to eat that way?" he took the question. The amber eyes looked to him with a killing gaze. For a moment he could swear to his most beloved PSP, that the eyes affected as they would have been crimson, but maybe just his colour lensed goggles was the reason of the momentary delusion.

His tablemate soon took an other amount of jam and smiled, gazing to the red sauce absently. "You know, we have already discussed my eating habits, you just couldn't bring it back as a happened memory. Hm, let me think about it. It was on 1999; you played with your new game, something Mario-stuff on your Nintendo and waited for your man. You hid in the kitchen, because the exchange was about cigarette for you and pirate records for the other."

Matt stayed in silence, he could recollect to it. Well, not exactly, because most of his young days could be described by this, but he rather chose to hear the stranger's words. If the person was right, it had happened in the Wammy's, which meant that the other has come from there too. The foreigner continued, constantly eating the jam during the speech.

"Once, I was pissed off, and I had to calm down myself, and had to hide somewhere. That was the time, when we met. You voiced my eating habit and I noted your smoking. Then we had started to meet in the kitchen, just for average few lined sentences monthly, so in quite rare occassional times. You smoked, I ate my jam. Sweet old times. Then Blondie came, and you has become his puppy." cursed the last words.

Matt knew that the Blondie meant Mello, his old friend. But if it meant the blonde boy, the stranger definitely has come from the same place. But he couldn't remember to it at all. The maroon tried to riffle the known kids in his mind and figure out in fine the other human's identity. But howsoever he concentrated; he couldn't find the matching personality. "Pass." he said then.

"Yeah, I know." simpered the other. "I would be suprised if you managed to figure it out." licked the jam again off the fingers. The sauce was almost finished. "You look for according to the appearance. That's a wrong way. I was in an other skin during that time, and as I said, it's me now. But you might be right, you were only ten years old, technically a child with his games..." wondered, but Matt suddenly cut short the other's nostalgic thoughts.

" _A?_ " he asked carefully. Minding the small dirty-blonde boy in his memories. He could remember to him. The visible weak kid had barely eaten when the maroon had seen him during the lunch or dinner times. But he could have exactly conjure that he had seen the boy grabbing jam jars out of the refrigerator and had taken to the rooms. He has remembered to him, because Matt had every time feared of that he would collapse in the next minute. The dirty-blonde small boy had seemed like an undead in his every second.

The pale freezed, as the maroon said the name. "44 13 562." murmured like a mantra, and gazed to space for a long moment, forgetting about the rest of slipping jam on the fingertips. Then the stranger blinked and shook the head, coming back to the reality. "It was a cruel low bow, Jeevas." said coldly and sucked the last few drops of the sweet. "I'm not A, by the way." added and lifted a hand to give a sign to the waitress.

"And could you finally answer for my fucking question then?" asked the maroon, now, he has been already pissed off by the other's behaviour. "I momentary don't have any fancy for your guess-who-I-am game. If I wanna play, I would be at home." he said. And grabbed the shopping bags's bow under the table, half the way on to leave.

The other sighed. "All right, Mail." said and put a little cash under the jam's dish, keeping it visible for the waitresses. Matt thought how the hell he could have missed the motion from the other when the wallett was got out, but as the stranger accommodated the rest to him, he recognised. It was his money, from his jeans' pocket. "Thank you for your invitation." said the pale commonly, giving back to him the wallett, just like the pickpocketing would have been a completely normal method.

"What the-?" Matt reacted anon, and pulled out the small object from the other's hands, put it back to its place. He couldn't tell when the black haired managed to seize it or how he had missed that, he rather didn't take those questions. Matt just stood up from the table and noticed that the stranger did the same.

"So, where we go?" looked the amber eyes to the maroon guy, and grinned like a damn psycho, keeping a fingertip between the lips. Matt had to realise that when the stranger said ' _invitation_ ', it hadn't been just about the dessert. The game addicted boy groaned, but then came across, and nodded.

"Right." he said unwillingly. Well, that day wouldn't be even better, he thought suddenly, but then, freezed. The small details clogged together. The message what he had managed to decipher almost half a year earlier, had been about two days. The day when it was sent, and an other what was mentioned, and this day was the second one. The ' _All Hallow's Eve_ ', when forgotten souls have come back to the living ones – or at least according to some scubblebutts.

The seller would have liked to be definitely a vampire, he was the creepy nerd guy, and there was that stranger, who has come from the Wammy's, had known A, and what had happened with him – or as Matt recognised, the person has known the details, according to the reaction for the name. And then, the maroon's name was also kenned by the pale. The jam was eaten insanely, and undoubtedly the person's current appearence has gone by as a camouflage, since it was the day when everyone has been wearing a mask.

"I am a corpse." said the stranger, smiling to the maroon widely, like it would have been an answer for his questions, still keeping the thumb near to the mouth. Matt just now noticed that the person was a little bit taller than him, but the slightly tilted carriage made seen the opposite. The goggle-eyed marked the positure and the contour, what his companion straight off noticed and smirked.

"Mail, could you stop it? It's quite annoying, you know. I try to hold my role, but it's hard if someone constantly monitoring me. At least do it less obviously." signed and put back the black gloves to the skinny colorness hands. Matt perceived that the skin there was wavy too, just like on the stranger's face. "It's a burning scar." explained to the unsounded question. "They tried their best to recover me completely, but since no one had a photo of me and I was a hard case, that has become the result."

Matt stayed in silence. And as they walked through the street, side by side, an other piece of the puzzle was put in its place. The ciphered message arrived through the Wammy's network on the thirteenth of April. He had remembered to it. He had wanted to talk about it to Roger, but since the man had been engaged by Near's stuff, to locate the kid safely to US and find trustworthy workmates, he had rather skipped this chance and kept it in secret as his own case.

The message had been sent on the anniversary on A's death, he has now just recognised that fact. The text has mentioned a possible meeting place, but he couldn't understand it, thus he had rather looked after the IP address and then Matt had come here, to Los Angeles. He has stayed here, trusting that the message's sender would show up. He had lost the hope few months after, and then he has stucked here.

The remaining date what was mentioned on the message has been about this day, but Matt wasn't sure. It was written _'Happy Birthday_ ', as the last line of the whole. Well, it had arrived on the day on A's death, what was the dirty-blonde guy's birthday too. But today was the last day of October, the forgotten and also remembered day of the year. That couldn't have been a coincidence that the message's deciphering had been as hard as fuck, as hard as it could have been deciphered only by L and the day was today L's birthday and the day when the dead ones came back to visit their family.

"You sent the message, didn't you?" he stopped and took the question to the stranger. The person smirked. The amber eyes were full of joy and excitement. For a moment Matt would have sware to his PSP again, that he had already seen those eyes. Maybe as the unknown had said, when he had been younger. He had known this somebody, he had just forgotten it, completely. And the maroon now felt him with that fact himself like a moron.

"That's right, Mail. Good deduction." looked delighted. "Now, take the bigger question: _why?_ " marked Matt with a demonic smirk. The maroon didn't have to think too much. He had known the answer, it has been everybody's goal: to supplant L. But as Matt thought about it, it has seemed rather a challange, as Mello had done it with Near day after day. But except his two friends, the other part of the current small war, was dead.

"L died." Matt said. But the pale showed no surprise on the face, so it was already known. In this case the whole stuff has become like a profanation. The other side has still played the game. The person's sounded question has become relevant: _why?_. Why? Because anyone could have been better than a dead one. That could be technically counted as a timidness. A compatition with no compatitors. That was disgusting. Matt felt repugnance to it.

"It doesn't count in real, it's just simple pure victory." he said and the other laughed. It was a demonic laugh, not human at all. Matt wondered how could have it happened in this world to gave born such an insane person like the stranger was? Even the amber eyes had something creepy and killing tone, like the owner would have known everything about everybody.

"Well, no one has ever conceived that fact such obviously and said it in the same time like a damn curse. I am impressed, Mail Jeevas." cracked up and started biting the thumb. "You know, there are only few people who have succeeded to ever amaze me. You are the third one, I guess. Don't know, don't count. But in real, it's quite hard." smirked. "Let's back then to your question. Now, you have managed to convince me."

"Convince about what?" Matt asked off the cuff. "I doubt you are willing to tell me your existence now, just because I found out your method. And I doubt, this is the only thing you would have liked to succeed. L is dead. Yeah, that's a fact. He is fucking dead for approximately three years. He is not come back to life so your whole whose-dick-is-bigger is meaningless. It's just ridiculous. For fuck's seak, leave me fucking alone and obsessing someone else's with your stroke-of-wit plan." he wreaked. Now, he has been sick to death the other's stuff, the secrets, the games, the manipulation. "I don't know what do you think who the hell you are, but beat it and eat your fucking jam-"

"It's Rue." the dark short haired shortened his tantrum suddenly with a wide grin. Matt had to blink to realise that the person finally said what he has wanted for approximately an hour, a really long hour. He stopped again and gazed to the stranger. It didn't seem as it was a false name. That fact freezed him. He couldn't tell when was the last time he had heard someone's real name. Well, he could tell that. It was three years earlier. But it had been just an accidental action, the other had had tough time. But in seriously, it has never happened with him truly.

"What?" he shocked, and tried to collect his mind. The owner of the amber eyes didn't seem surprised. So it was mentioned by purpose. The name was real, it had a purpose and it had been given to him. It had been given to the maroon guy. For Matt that fact felt like a share on a secret, even if the stranger voiced constantly his birth name, since the first sounded sentence.

The black haired sighed, and wiggled the demonic eyes. "It's my true one. But if it embarrasses you, you can call me as I was gone by during my old days. And as if I was called by you too, just you didn't remember to it." noted and smiled to Matt friendly. That smile exceptionally looked differently, it made a quite strong suspicion to the maroon guy about the stranger's gender.

"And what was that?" he asked. Identifying that from now, he wouldn't be able to sluff off the person at all, just if it would be wanted by the other too. The dark haired widened the smirk on the face. It was creepy, but as the name was sounded, Matt recognised why.

"B." she bespoke it in fine.

A/N: Oh, have I mentioned that I little a bit changed B's character? Well, I think, it's already too late to warn about it. :D Calm down, 'she' won't be less creepy than originally, rather on the contrary, I guess...


	2. Beyond Alternate

Summary: They have been always like copies for the pilot product in a production line, a so-called plan B for the root. It has never bothered the dark haired youth, being a backup for someone else, if it has been about A. It hasn't counted, everything else beyond it, has been just a nuance detail then, a slight bay, a good opportunity and time to examine the main question in all its bearings: the identity and the whole mystery around L. Until that day, what should have been exceptional, a personal meeting for the successor with the greatness himself.

 **Beyond Alternate**

 _\- eight years earlier -_

"How was the meeting with L?" asked the dark haired adolescent anon as the other stepped into theirs common room, but answer wasn't come and even the eye-contact was ignored. The dirty-blonde chamber-fellow just took off his bag on the desk and sat down in a complete silence.

B waited a little, at least until the chapter in the book was finished. The part about the human body has really taken an interest for the pale youth. Even the names of them. Those were fascinating. The anatomy book has been just started yesterday but the latin tallies of the members were already known. The younger kid's knowledge and interest have page after page been growing. B felt it as a luck coincidence that a day before, the bored mood had led that damn eyes and the book had been found in the library to somehow kill the time while A had been on his common private French lesson.

B quickly memorized the number of the chapter and then closed the circa sixhundred-page tome. And nyway, it has begun too heavy to be held only by one hand and four fingertips in the air more longer. However the literature has distracted the mind, the muscles were ached for a long while by the weird holding method. Thus put it off for a little time would have meant a far better way in both meaning, even to give a little rest to the limb and to try to figure out A's current state.

The dark haired youth shaked the numbed hand and fixed the croaching position on the coach what they have had in their room, beside the bunk bed, two desk and the wardrobes. Basically they should have had two single beds, because both of them have grown up since they have been here. But B sticked to the old furniture and when it had been asked ages earlier, the pale rather had sold an idea about a sofa. A hadn't cared with it. He hasn't been tall either to reach the bedframes during sleeping so it hadn't counted the issue to him as an inconvenience. It had concerned only the chamber's other occupant.

B had been already taller during that time, but since it hadn't bothered for the dark haired kid as the fetal position has been preferred in sleeping, the offer had been for both of them irrelevant. Thus they had got rather a coach at the left empty space. And it has become B's place, with the perfect angle whence everything else could have been monitored in the one hundred and thirty square foot area.

"Is everything okay?" took B the question after an or so ten minutes long break. The dirty-blonde boy didn't answer. He has just gazed to his just now opened book. The younger was sure he hasn't learned. The pale waited a bit, until A visibly forgot to flip a page for the better camouflage and then voiced the third question to the other.

"Do I see well, you are ignoring me?" still no answer was came, jut the contant gaze to the words what had no meanings this time. "At least look at me, Arthur." B begged, what was an unique occassion. The older seemingly hesitated for a moment, especially with the fact that the other sounded his real name – what should have been counted as an extreme case too - but then he continued the reading.

A's every moment was a lie, B knew that and the lies and the secrets have been what were hated by the dark haired teenager the most. Again other minutes were spent in dead, killing silence. It has hurt. For the younger it has caused almost a physical pain what ached more than the numbed hand, what now has started to be felt like hundreds of angry ants would have stucked under the flesh. The annoying, itchy sensation made the pale think and realise the other's current close mood. The thoughts – what were undoubtedly right – were shocking.

"It's about me, not about L." B voiced. The partner of the one-sided conversation stayed motionless, and lifeless, hasn't reacted at all, but the dark haired knew it. Even if the meeting with L – _with the great L_ – had gone wrong, it wouldn't have caused a crush in the dirty-blonde's mind. Something had shocked him. Something what could have been connected to the meeting.

B has known that if A would meet with detective in fine, he wouldn't talk about it. A hasn't been much talkative since they have been here, maybe he could talk in his old time, but not in the past few years since he has decided to follow in the footsteps of L in every price as the next version of the greatness.

B has hated the guy. The whole stuff around the mysterious being has been incomprehensible. The pale has never felt the pressure of living in someone great's shadows, until A hasn't started to live according to the expectations and it has started to eat him up – what he couldn't see, but B all the more.

The dark haired has hoped that the meeting with L would change him. It would give him courage and self-confidence – like he has been felt by himself always as someone who is still not enough. But that wasn't the current state. Something had gone wrong, terrible wrong. It wasn't just about L. If the detective's true form would have been disappointing, B could have swore that wouldn't have caused more harm. As L's follower A wouldn't have reacted suprised even if the reality has stayed far away from his expectations and imagine. No, it has been more.

Something has shocked the dirty-blonde guy. B has seen it, not with those damn eyes, it was just visible, even for a dumbass. A was terrified. He has tried to distract his mind with reading and ignoring his chamber fellow, but the lie could have been felt in the air.

He is terrified by me – B realised suddenly and started to bite the nail on the thumb nervously. _If L spoke to him through a screen and with that damn mechanic voice, it after all should have been unique. A private talk. A private conversation within the Root and the successor. If it had happened in person, well, that's an other case, but… no, that would have been more unique then. An exceptional occassion. A should have felt him chosen. But this…_

B fixed the croaching position again and continued the thinking, gazing to the space and biting the nail. _A stepped into the room. He has been already shuttered. Why? He should have been enough. He is the next L, there is no doubt. He has learning and studying everything since we have been here. Damn place. Damn L. Damn…_ me _?_

The last question has echoed in the dark haired's mind. The whole thing clogged together. _Shit, it's me._ He freezed. _Beyond doubt, it's me. The whole is about me. I have thought it right, during the whole time. The conclusions during the years… the small mimicries… the reactions for the appearence… the whole thing, the thought about it... everything was right. It's L. It's…_ me.

The years what B has spent with examinations about the reactions and to follow them, now, have ached, burn the soul out in the weak, teenager body. B could recall the memory when they had met with the old, English man: the momentary shock in his face and eyes as he had got the vision to the successor's friend; the slight silence and hesitation in the mechanical voice as the man had told the little change in the well-organised plan, and the breathly short shock in L's watch through the camera, what had been switched on to check the subject of the alteration.

B hasn't been just a backup for A, it has been more behind it. The dark haired kid has been L's echo, an unexpected wraith or younger version from the other part of the world. It had seemed firstly as an accidental coincidence and beside A's attachment, the similar appearence had triggered the pale's fate.

Then after a few weeks in the Wammy's, B has found a new hobby: to find out L's identity. The same time as A has started to be addicted to follow the great detective's step as the mysterious man's only and first successor. B has wanted to know the guy, the whole secretive behaviour around the faceless and voiceless legendary and the person itself – for A too.

B has been the legend's reflection what echoed the examined small details, such as the observation for each movements or lookout. B has been the exact living picture of L. The reactions for the dark haired kid's positions, walking methods have shown in the English man's and the second director's eyes a kind of shock in every single time. B has recognized those moments and formed the role according to them. Even, based on the old man's and L's first impact on the pale youth.

B has looked like as L, and day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, the successor or the backup for A has become L's identical. This has made the dirty-blonde guy be in shock and terrified after the personal meeting with the greatness himself.

"Why are you here?" took the elder the question unexpectedly. It needed a few secs to the other to notice the sounded ask.

"How do you mean?" B got the chewed fingertip off from the hungry teeth wonderingly.

The knitted, beige uppered stayed in silence, just like someone who wanted to reconsider, if his question had been appropriate or not. "I mean as your attendance here is not relevant. I know that I asked to come with me and to stay here, but years are gone, B. Your presence now, here, is not necessary any more. We are grown." he elaborated.

The chameleon kid couldn't know at all once how to react to it at all. B has exactly known that the sourness in the blonde's words has been just caused by the painful truth, the eerie similarity what both of them just now have recognized.

The pale stood up from the couch and after a quick thought, aimed the door. "I will be in the kitchen." B commented the movement looking to the chamber's companion, who still ignored the eye-contact and to react to the other somehow. The shapeshifter didn't respond the anewed negligence, opened the door, and then left the room, leaving the only and first friend in life to be alone until he has needed it. B has exactly known that the blonde currently just needed some time on his own.

A has every time hanged on to the visible facts and B's look was one of those reasons what have shown his beat in a game in which his fate was to be the next L, as his only purpose to existence. With B, with the seemingly perfect alternate, what has been he then? B rather left him alone with his thoughts and with the fact that the pale's presence in his eye-sight would only make it harder.

"You seriously have to eat that way?" heard the dark haired adolescent suddenly a voiced question. B looked around to find the owner of the sound. Firstly the situation wasn't obvious, but then as the unknown maroon guy – the only other being in the room – looked up from his game, it has become sure, the owner was him.

The striped uppered youth continued the clicking on his PSP, like the previously sounded question would have been just an accidental movement, but then said something again, not stopping the game and gazed only for a slight second to the other.

"Are you dumb or what?" asked the younger. The guy's accent was heard like as a North American one, like a Canadian – or as B could have told it. The pale has been good at it, to recognise them, even copying the accents and tones perfectly.

"No, I'm not." answered then with a common tone and licked the rest of the strawberry jam from the fingers, keeping the jar in the other hand.

"Then?" B slowly tasted the sweet, only after that replied to it, smiling widely.

"I seriously have to eat this way." said. The clicking continued without mimicry or a facial reaction. Almost five minutes have spent in a dead silence, when the maroon raised his head and checked the clock on the wall.

"Fuck it, he is late again." he noted. B looked up to the quietly ticking clock, it was five thirty-seven, almost forty-five minutes after A had had the meeting with L. Sixteen minutes and twenty seconds since B has started to eat the jam and ten minutes one second since the other voiced the question, and as an other being's attendance in the kitchen has become obvious.

Other minutes have elapsed while the gamer waited and B ate the crimson sweet and the clock on the wall ticked. The maroon's clicking has set about soon to be impatient, it has become slightly angry and louder as the time went and it has been started to be combined with some cursing words. He then rather switched off the appliance and tried to kill the time with something else.

"So what's your oddness?" he inquired, trying to fill the waiting minutes with something called communication. "Or you just simply the ' _jam-guy_ '?"

"I guess I'm just simply the ' _jam-guy_ '" the maroon murmured, concentrating to carefully slip in the hand to the jar to reach the rest of the sauce.

"Aham. Just like the parrot-one who repeat the other's thoughts." the youth seemed pissed off, but as B recognized it was just about the time and the unknown one's late.

The pale viewed to the younger, it wasn't a common habit. Except A, the dark haired has rather avoided to look to the others. The sight of the people has meant for the chameleon youth something else. It has been a curse. B has seen theirs fate, has been capable to see theirs end and name – what in this place, where the name has been the man's only and most hided fact beside theirs past, has meant everything, the power over the others.

The crimson letters and numbers now told to the pale everything about the maroon. His name was Mail Jeevas, and the numbers – what couldn't have any meaning to anyone else, but B – have shown: _509 46 12_. B has exactly known what those numbers have presented: the other's life span.

While the gamer's man has arrived and they have served the change – for four blue boxes for the younger and some CD-ROMs for the taller brown guy, B again had to realize how much those numbers were abhored.

The tall one's name was Toby Dale. Except his end, B could have predicted for him a criminal life. It was visible on his face. Something illegal stuff, then prison, then some bad guy would kill him inside or something like that. His fate was on his eyes. But as B took a look to the brown guy's numbers, the reality almost felt as a painful slap on a face: 65 years 14 days and 23 minutes. He would live a normal life. He would get old. He would have a family, a daughter or a son or maybe even grandchildren too. He wouldn't deserve it. He wouldn't be caught be the police. Or maybe if he had been, he would be free soon after that.

The anger has slowly started to crawl through B's limbs. The pale has hated the people, hated that damn ability to see theirs destiny and hated the ones who didn't deserve their life and hated the unfairness of the life. The look of the others' time after time has made B to remember to the mortality, the briefness of the left time.

The tall went away with his pirate records and after a minute the maroon broke open one of the blue boxes and pulled out a slice from it. He opened the window beside him widely, like an already common habit and lightened the well-deserved cigarette. B came back to real life as the other sniffed from the fag and exhaled.

"Cancer." the pale noted as the numbers of the younger and the compulsive habit clogged together. The maroon would die obviously in cancer, then why the hell would he die like twenty-one? The gamer was momentary somewhere between eight or nine and the smoking seemed to him as a used behavior for a quite long time not as a new picked up action.

"Aham. Like I'd cared." reacted the other and sniffed again from the fatal addiction. "Anyway, who are you? The police? My parents? 'cause I think neither of 'em, so shut your mouth, creepy."

B laughed, had to laugh. Although the maroon would have liked to play a mature one, he has just succeeded with it the complete opposite. He has been just a kid with a damn tongue and with undoubtedly a cursed background what was responsible for the smoking.

"I won't tell it to anyone, don't worry." B smirked.

"Like I'd cared." said again the striped uppered. They stayed in silence for a long minute, then the maroon voiced. "Matt, by the way." _Of course…_

"B." the maroon grinned to the pale.

" _B_? Your name is a single character? Like L's?" _Exactly_ – B thought, but rather sounded the truth, than to be a copy of the great detective's imagine in other's eyes too. A was far enough for it.

"It's Beyond. Beyond Birthday." the gamer looked to the dark haired for a really long second, then smiled.

"Of course you are." he cracked up, but as B didn't show any reaction or betraying mime, he frozen. "Seriously? This is your name?"

"Yapp." the pale said indifferently and nursed the last amount of jam from the fingers.

The maroon suddenly didn't know what to tell. "I have never heard about anyone who has- who has two names or a complete name as a camouflage." he commented then, but both of them known that wasn't the truth, or the real weirdness in the dark haired adolescent's name.

"At least my name isn't Mail, _Jeevas_." B reflected slightly petulantly. The maroon coughed.

"W-what?" the pale didn't react, the last drops of jam were much more interesting in the certain moment. After the first shock, the other stepped over his sounded secret what somehow was revealed, and moaned. "It's pronounced as ' _mile_ '."

B noted the difference then put the empty jam jar on the kitchen-bar and washed the glass from its bottom to the top, like it has happened with everything else after that in the room, with the bar, the dishes what were near, the selves and the refrigerator, inside and outside, the whole place, except where the maroon has stayed.

"Have you finished with your smoking break?" the question was heard by the dark haired, keeping a sink sponge within two fingertips, watered.

"Are you the party at cleaning or what the hell?" the younger started stunnedly.

"No, I'm just cleaning after myself."

"The jar would have been enough, you didn't touch anything else than that…" he wondered and sniffed the last millimeters from the fag and stubbed it on its box, throwing the end of it to the rose bush below the window. The pale didn't react to it, neither for the previously added note. "So you have a cleaning stuff." voiced the maroon in a cold voice.

"Shut up or I will tell when you will die." B retorted. The shapeshifter has hated when anyone sounded the oddnesses what have been obviously ticks and echoes from the past and the curse what was born simultaneously with dark haired adolescent.

The gamer snorted. "You won't surprise me. I won't live longer than my thirties." he said calmly with a shrug. _Well, that's true._ "But if you want to surprise my at all costs, tell me, when _you_ will die." got he the pale.

B stayed in silence for a minute, then put the sponge near to the maroon and left the kitchen without a word. The next hiding spot was commonly aimed without a second thought, the library, where the words in the books have always distracted the mind and the absence in the damn ability.

Even if the eyes made the chameleon youth incapable to see the own details, B has always hoped that the time, the invisible numbers haven't meant a later date than three years, one months and two days counted from the present day.


End file.
